Brazilian Amazon and French Guyana’s Ecotranslation

Abstract

The French explorer, physician, and geographer Jules Crevaux (1847–1882) documented in his accounts the expeditions he undertook in the French and Brazilian Amazon, describing the geography, people, customs, and challenges he faced. In this article, we discuss the translation decisions made working on Chapters I to IV of the second part of his book Voyages dans l’Amérique du Sud, published in 1883, a section entitled “De Cayenne aux Andes (1878–1879): Exploration de l’Oyapock, du Parou, de l’Iça et du Yapura” (Crevaux, 1883). The work covers Crevaux’s expedition between 1878 and 1880, when he departed from Cayenne, ascending the Oiapoque River toward the Andes. Among the questions we examine and that are relevant to the translation are the anachronistic terms used by Crevaux, the intention of reflecting his relationship with the environment he traversed, the treatment and research for translating anthroponyms and toponyms, the description of Indigenous and Maroon peoples, and the local fauna and flora. These translation choices were made from the perspective of Ecotranslation, which refers to all forms of translation thought and practice that consciously engage with the challenges of human-induced environmental change (Cronin, 2017; Torres, 2023).